De Duitse schrijver Heinrich Mann werd geboren op 27 maart 1871 in Lübeck. Zie ook alle tags voor Heinrich Mann op dit blog.
Uit: The Loyal Subject (Der Untertan, vertaald door Ernest Boyd en Daniel Theisen)
“They came from a northerly direction, marching slowly in small sections. When they reached Unter den Linden they hesitated, as if lost, took counsel by an exchange of glances, and turned off toward the Emperor’s palace. There they stood in silence, their hands in their pockets, while the wheels of the carriages splashed them with mud, and they hunched up their shoulders beneath the rain which fell on their faded overcoats. Many of them turned to look at passing officers, at the ladies in their carriages, at the long fur coats of the gentlemen hurrying from Burgstrasse. Their faces were expressionless, neither threatening nor even curious: not as if they wanted to see, but as if they wanted to be seen. Others never moved an eye from the windows of the palace. The rain trickled down from their upturned faces. The horse of a shouting policeman drove them on farther across the street to the next corner—but they stood still again, and the world seemed to sink down between those broad hollow faces, lit by the livid gleam of evening, and the stern walls beyond them which were already enveloped in darkness.
“I do not understand,” said Diederich, “why the police do not take more energetic measures. That is certainly a rebellious crowd.”
“Don’t you worry,” Wiebel replied, “they have received exact instructions. Believe me, the authorities have their own welldeveloped plans. It is not always desirable to suppress at the outset such excrescences on the body politic. When they have been allowed to ripen, then a radical operation can be performed.”
The ripening process to which Wiebel referred increased daily, and on the twenty-sixth it was completed. The demonstrations showed that the unemployed were now more conscious of their objective. When they were driven back into one of the northern streets they overflowed into the next, and before they could be cut off, they surged forward again in increasing numbers. The processions all met at Unter den Linden, and when they were separated they ran together again. They reached the palace, were driven back, and reached it again, silent and irresistible, like a river overflowing its banks.”
De Duitse dichter en schrijver Kurt Drawert werd geboren op 15 maart 1956 in Henningsdorf. Zie ook alle tags voor Kurt Drawert op dit blog.
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Ik zag haar, achter de ramen,
spreken, zag dat ze alleen was,
en dat ze me niet zag
en sprak. Achter haar voertuig,
langs de weg,
twee naar elkaar gebogen,
zeer kale platanen,
daarachter de dode fabriek,
daarboven de maan
enigszins versplinterd door de winter.
Daarna reed ik verder
en ik reed lang zonder herinnering door.
Vertaald door Frans Roumen
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 27e maart ook mijn blog van 27 maart 2019 en ook mijn blog van 27 maart 2017 en ook mijn blog van 27 maart 2016 deel 2 en eveneens deel 3.